


Quicksilver

by Lilibet



Series: October 2020 prompts [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Qui-Gon Jinn Lives, although this could sorta be read as gen too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:35:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26844490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilibet/pseuds/Lilibet
Summary: Obi-Wan knows his master. He knows he can be as stubborn as a bantha, as obstinate as a brick wall. But he’s also grounded, like a thousand-year-old tree, roots anchored into the soil and making the world bend to its will rather than the other way around. The living force radiates from him, and it calms Obi-Wan like nothing he’s ever felt before.
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: October 2020 prompts [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949062
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	Quicksilver

**Author's Note:**

> For the flufftober 2020 day 6 prompt "quicksilver".
> 
> I really struggled with this prompt and I really hate what I came up with, but I said to myself I have to post whatever I write so you have to suffer with me too XD

Qui-Gon is like quicksilver.

But he’s also not.

And that changeable nature in and of itself shows Obi-Wan that he’s more like the former than the latter.

Obi-Wan knows his master. He knows he can be as stubborn as a bantha, as obstinate as a brick wall. But he’s also grounded, like a thousand-year-old tree, roots anchored into the soil and making the world bend to its will rather than the other way around. The living force radiates from him, and it calms Obi-Wan like nothing he’s ever felt before.

He knows most people would describe Qui-Gon like that. Stubborn, but sure. Grounded.

But most people don’t see Qui-Gon like Obi-Wan does.

And to Obi-Wan, he has a quicksilver character, cool and wilful in one moment, utterly fragile in the next.

No situation has demonstrated this as starkly to Obi-Wan as this one.

The first thing Obi-Wan notices when he wakes is the iron grip on his right hand. It’s nearly crushing, just on the edge of too painful, but the flashes of memory make him hold his tongue.

He cracks his eyes open, and then promptly squints them shut against the light stabbing into his eyeballs like hot knives.

There’s a rustle of movement and the light dims. When Obi-Wan opens his eyes again his retinas aren’t assaulted this time, and he spies the closed blind over the window. Drifting his gaze across the room, he finds himself in what he assumes is the healer’s wing of the palace they’re guests in.

The iron grip on his hand tightens briefly, drawing Obi-Wan’s gaze. He follows the hand, up the arm it’s attached to until his eyes come to rest on Qui-Gon’s face.

He looks terrible.

Haggard and drawn, as though he hasn’t slept at all.

His last memory is of the cool detachment on Qui-Gon’s face morphing into panicked rage, not this...sorrowful emptiness.

They’d both been sent to this planet to broker peace between the reigning monarchy and the dissenters trying to bring it down. It was a particularly important planet, a relatively wealthy one in the mid rim, with an abundance of natural resources very useful to the Republic and the war effort. Of which the council had expressed the importance of many times in their briefing.

Upon meeting the dissenters and hearing their outrageous demands of the Republic, Qui-Gon had become stubborn in a way that Obi-Wan knew from experience meant this was not going to end well.

And it hadn’t. No sooner had Qui-Gon demonstrated his unwillingness to bend, they’d been attacked. Obi-Wan had been subdued, on his knees in front of Qui-Gon, blood oozing down the side of his face, who’d been blackmailed with Obi-Wan’s life to agree to their demands.

Qui-Gon had become cool and unforgiving. Unyielding.

The last thing Obi-Wan remembers is the feeling of a blaster being pressed to the side of his head, and then, blackness.

“What happened?” Obi-Wan asks. His voice is raspy, and his throat feels like it’s made of sandpaper.

He gratefully accepts the cup of water Qui-Gon passes to him, stretching to the bedside table without releasing his hand.

The cool water soothes his throat until he’s confident he can speak without sounding like master Yoda.

He watches as Qui-Gon fills him in. Sees how his eyes can’t settle on one part of Obi-Wan for more than a second, flickering from his head to his arm to his chest, as though still checking for injuries. Hears how his voice wavers and shakes as he tells Obi-Wan of the rage and fear that almost consumed him when he was injured. Feels his thumb rub back and forth over the inside of his wrist, as though Qui-Gon’s reassuring himself that Obi-Wan is still here.

Obi-Wan has never seen Qui-Gon as fragile as this, as though he’s made of glass and one wrong push will make him shatter on the floor.

He wordlessly tugs the hand in his to rest over his heart. Qui-Gon’s words abruptly cut off as he looks at it, and then his face crumples and he presses his face into Obi-Wan’s side and sobs.

They will stay like that until Qui-Gon will climb into the bed beside Obi-Wan, until he will gather him close and convince himself that Obi-Wan is truly still here.

But for now, Obi-Wan just threads his free hand through Qui-Gon’s hair and strokes him softly.


End file.
